"He'll probably need help," Nico decided as soon as Percy left the room. Although the son of Hades had a bored expression on his face, the steely glint in his eye had him striding over to the door to check that Percy was really gone. When he didn't see him, he called up to Leo on deck.
"What's up, Ghost Boy?" Leo asked as he bounded into the room, stopping dead as he saw Frank and Jason looking at him expectantly. A coil of nervousness collected in his gut as he asked, "Whoah. What's with the get-together?" hoping that today wouldn't be the day they had his 'no more inventing things that may try to kill us' intervention.
That argument would get heated, and blood was so hard to get out of the floors.
His fears were assuaged by Nico's, "We need a way to spy on the showers to help make Percy and Annabeth's little get-together a success," and as the pale boy was busy planning, he didn't notice the relief Leo hid with a wide grin. The floorboards were safe for another day.
"Finally going after his 'stormy seductress', is he?" he asked smugly, nervousness dissipating to be replaced by amusement, and Frank gave him a curious glance.
"How do you know about that?" the shapeshifter asked, puzzled, and Leo gave a devilish grin.
"You really should keep your conversations quieter," the firebug advised with a small laugh, making the other occupants of the room blush slightly, but then Nico shook his head to clear it and focused back on the task at hand.
"So, Percy and Annabeth. D'you think you could...?" Nico began, but he trailed off with a little choking noise as Leo merely crossed to the wall, tapped a little rhythm on it, and slid it up to reveal a flatscreen TV set into the wall. He turned it on with a push of a button, and a picture of Annabeth showering immediately flickered into life.
Nico, Jason, and Frank stared at the grinning Valdez with unabashedly incredulous expressions. Finally, though, Nico cleared his throat and took a breath.
"Has that always been there?" he asked bluntly, not one to beat around the bush, and Leo nodded unabashedly with a bright grin. Then he glanced at the TV, blushed furiously as the implications registered in his mind, and rushed to correct his blunder.
"In case there are ever intruders. We can see where they are, but if they tried to turn them on, they'd explode," Leo explained hurriedly, still red in the face, and the other three breathed a sigh of relief.
"And you've never turned them on before now, right?" Jason asked, a bit teasing, but his grin faded the longer Leo stared at him, wide-eyed as a deer in the headlights. Finally, after a long moment, Leo smiled perhaps a bit too widely and clapped a hand on Jason's shoulder.
"Of course not," he said cheerily, whirling on his heel to rush through the door once again. Jason eyes the door in slight trepidation, but of course Leo couldn't resist.
"By the way, nice birthmark Grace!" his voice called out from the deck, smug as the grin everyone knew he was wearing, and Jason's eyes widened before narrowing to angry slits.
"Where's-" Nico started to ask, but before he could finish Jason launched himself off the bed and into the hall, a demigod-shaped blur shouting expletives at the engineer.
"Saw him changing once. It's on his ass," Frank informed the confused son of Hades with barely repressed amusement, and the boy gave a snickered 'oh' of understanding before turning his attention to the TV and giving a sharky grin.
"Let's see what we'll see," he said smugly, picking up the remote next to the TV stand.
Percy ran over several plans in his head on the way to the showers, some of them being truly brilliant but most of them also being ridiculous. Because really, where was he supposed to get a herd of rhinoceroses at this hour? And that much parsley was going to be expensive if he went in that direction.
Eh, no matter. He had just thought of a truly foolproof plan, though it was the most ridiculous of the lot, and he was a bit anxious as to its implementation. So many things could go wrong...
...But then, so many things could go right as well.
"I'm not a demigod if I don't take a few risks..." he rationalized to himself, then took a deep breath and assumed a nonchalant expression as he opened the door to the showers.
Annabeth jumped as she caught sight of who, exactly, had just invaded the shower room, and Percy gave a small smile and a wave as he dumped his change of clothes and towel on the bench. The daughter of Athena immediately darted behind the shallow wall that separated her stall from the next, shouting, "Percy, what are you doing?! Why are you in here?"
"Same reason you are, Wise Girl. Although, maybe you're not so wise if you can't fathom the use of a shower," Percy teased as he removed his shirt, dark hair getting even more messed up by the rustling fabric.
Annabeth immediately bristled at the insult, hissing at him, "I know what showers are for, Seaweed Brain. What I don't know is why you think it's okay for you to be here at the same time as me."
Percy had to stifle a laugh at this, shooting the blonde an incredulous look. "Really, Annabeth?" he asked her, "That's what you're worried about? Modesty? In case you've forgotten, I've seen it all before."
His fingers moved to the clasp on his belt, and Annabeth's cheeks flamed red, "Well yes, but that was different!" she protested, eyes wild with something she was trying to pass off as anger but couldn't. Percy raised an eyebrow.
"I fail to see your reasoning," the son of Poseidon drawled, "Contrary to your nickname, I do have a brain, and it is perfectly capable of restraining itself from such activities if I tell it to."
With that, he dropped his pants and underwear, and Annabeth failed to suppress the tiny 'eep' that escaped her lips. She ducked back behind the wall and stayed there this time, and so Percy took it upon himself to walk over to turn on the shower next to hers, humming a little tune as he waited for it to heat up.
"I like my showers to go as hot as I can stand." he said conversationally, directing his voice to the nervous blonde, "Gets me all relaxed."
"I like my showers cold," Annabeth replied instantly, mocking him by repeating his words, "Gets me all alert."
Suppressing a chuckle, Percy stepped into the shower and let out a little noise of content as the heated water began melting his aches and pains away. Over in the next stall, Annabeth pressed her lips together into an angry line.
Stupid Percy, she thought, Being so adorable and hot at the same time. Why does he have to make it so hard to stay away?
"Annabeth? You still there?" came his voice, amused and slightly worried, then became hopeful at his, "I don't have to perform mouth-to-mouth on your unconscious body, do I?"
A single, angry noise forced its way past Annabeth's clenched teeth, but luckily the water drowned it out. Out loud, she said, "I'm fine, Seaweed Brain. But you won't be if you don't get out of here!"
A surprised noise reached her ears. "What?" he asked incredulously, "But I just got in!"
"Just GO!" she nearly yelled. Silence met her remark, silence except for the rush of water, until a single, harsh sigh came. And then, quite unexpectedly (or perhaps not), Percy stepped around the corner and leaned against the wall, eyeing her with a combination of fear, sadness, and annoyance.
"Is this about that curse?" he asked bluntly, and she froze.
With another sigh, he pressed his lips into a hard, thin line of anger and looked off down the length of the room. One of his hands rose to brush water from his eyes, and he closed his eyes before slowly inhaling...and slowly exhaling. Then he faced her once more, eyes determined.
"What did the curse say?" he asked her, voice firm, and so she told him.
"It said…" she began, faltering a bit before pressing on, "...it said that I was supposed to fall in love with Luke, a long time ago. Except something went wrong; I broke Eros' arrow and fell for you, instead. So Eros cursed me to outlive the one I fell for."
Once again, absolute silence after this proclamation, the steam filling the space between them.
"And you never thought it might be a self-fulfilling prophecy?" Percy asked her quietly, eyes narrowing to glare at some invisible deity hovering over her right shoulder, "Because I might not know a lot of things, but I know me. And I know that the pain of losing you would make me distance myself, would make me more reckless."
His eyes focused on her. "Because Annabeth? The only reason I'm careful is all of you. The seven of the quest, plus Nico, Reyna, and my mom. If one of you distanced yourself from me because of a stupid curse, I wouldn't say 'okay', would I?"
Annabeth swallowed hard, eyes wide and blurry in the steam, but through her raging emotions she managed to nod. "No, you wouldn't," she admitted, "You'd fight it."
"Damn right I'd fight it!" he snapped angrily, "I might just fight it anyways! I'll go to Croatia or wherever Eros is now, snap his bow in half, and make him take the curse back."
Annabeth laughed loudly, unable to help herself. Now that sounded like Percy.
"So tell me Annabeth," he said to her, smiling now as well, "Tell me if you don't want to be with me anymore, as boyfriend and girlfriend. We can stay friends, because we're both mature enough for that."
Annabeth almost contested this, because this was Percy, but then she realized that he totally was mature enough to push his romantic feelings aside for something so important to him. So she stayed silent, and he began speaking again.
"But if you're only distancing yourself because of that stupid curse, I will shower you in hugs and kisses and as many dates as I can before I go off to bury my foot so far up Eros' ass, it ends up behind his eyes," he told her, impassioned and serious and wow he would do it and Oh Gods he would too do it.
Annabeth flung herself forward and wrapped her arms around Percy's neck, pressing a heated kiss to his lips before pulling back and staring seriously into his eyes, stern and firm.
"Percy Jackson," she said seriously, glaring into his eyes, "If you do anything to frivolously endanger yourself before reaching the ripe old age of eighty six, I will trudge down to the Underworld and drag you out by your ear simply to have the pleasure of killing you myself."
Percy, with the smuggest smirk that was ever smugly smirked, leaned down and captured her lips with his own once more, pulling her close and letting her know just how much he loved her (no, that was not a euphemism).